Category: BT

BT

How To Kill A Joke With TTS

How To Kill A Joke With TTSText to Speech (TTS) processing has come on leaps and bounds from the early days of jerky, rough renditions of robotic-type chatter yesteryear.

A lot of the quality is truly amazing – very life like – but it appears that some systems still really doesn’t know how to deal with jokes.

Just now a friend (I assume) sent me an SMS joke, but sadly they misdirected it to my landline, not the mobile.

BT have a service in the UK where text messages can be sent to landlines and read out over the phone.

So you all have the joy of listening to the joke, I recorded it, just so you can enjoy the flat humour of it.

I found it took a couple of times of listening to it to actually understand what the joke was!

[audio:https://digital-lifestyles.info/media/audio/tiger-woods-joke.mp3]

BT Shout “We’re Number One” In Broadband

BT Shout We are Number One In BroadbandBT are rather pleased with themselves today as they’ve gained the number one position, as Britain’s most popular broadband retailer.

They now got 3.66m broadband customers which, in their words “leapfrogs” them over Virgin Media (NTL/ Telewest as was).

BT are of course running a reduced price scheme for the first six months of sign up – as are Virgin Media. The big difference between the two offers is the entry price – BT £8.95/month and VM £14.99. We would suggest that this has had a major impact in achieving BT’s current number one position (as well as buying PlusNet a short while back).

We’ve just a little, quick maths on the number of BT’s subscribers.

There’s healthy cash flows for BT in this game. Even taking the customers to be on the lowest package, they’ll be clawing in £66m _per month_. This rises to £91m if people are on the highest package.

On a yearly basis that’s broadband subscriptions earning for BT of between £792m and 1.092 Billion a year! Don’t forget you also _have_ to have a phone line with them to have their broadband, so extra earning there.

Not a bad little business broadband has turned out to be for them really. Makes you wonder why they were so reluctant to get going back in the late ’90’s/early 2000’s.

UK Access To Broadband Figures From 2000 – 2006

Want a quick recap on how the growth in the access to broadband has gone in the UK?

Lucky for you Christopher Huhne, the Liberal Democrat MP for Eastleigh asked the DTI

how many and what proportion of homes had access to broadband in each year since 2000; what (a) estimates of and (b) targets for broadband access his Department has made for future years;

Which led Margaret Hodge to share the following
Continue reading UK Access To Broadband Figures From 2000 – 2006

BT Vision MUST Be Ready Now, As Ad Campaign Launches

BT Vision MUST Be Ready Now, As Ad Campaign LaunchesMuch to our surprise, the UK public are starting to be told about the BT Vision service from BT, through a multi-million advertising campaign, with the two 60 second ads kicking off tomorrow during ITV’s ‘Grease Is The Word’.

The background
Since its initial ‘launch’, back in December 2006, when UK journalists were gathered together at BT’s head office (we covered it live) and were exposed to a very expensive event, there’s been very little further information – or even kit available.
Continue reading BT Vision MUST Be Ready Now, As Ad Campaign Launches

Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UK Pt 3/3

With all of these moves towards digital delivery in entertainment, we thought it would be worthwhile understanding one of the key items in this process – how to get the digital content to UK households.

Steve Kennedy is an acknowledged expert in the telecoms and data networks field, so it was an obvious choice for us to ask him to write an overview of how other IP operators can compete with BT – by creating their own data network. To do this, they need to put their own equipment into the telephone exchanges that connect to peoples houses. That process is Local Loop Unbundling (LLU).

Over three parts, we’ll give you a full background in LLU in the UK.

The two previous pieces gave an overview of LLU and which companies are players in the UK; and LLU Penetration in the UK and the (un)Economics of it.

OpenLLU
The operators should have joined forces and built a single LLU infrastructure between them and then competed on service. This would have meant a second national network to compete with BT’s 21CN allowing operators to compete with BT on their own terms.

Wales First For BT's 21CN Next-Gen Network RolloutAlso a single network would have meant it could go to many more of the 5,600 DLEs than the 1,200 everyone’s competing for at the moment.

Unfortunately competition is so fierce between the telecoms operators it will never happen – much to their joint detriment.

Broadband Competition
BT is still the biggest player by far and they’ll try and increase market share when they launch their 21CN. Many operators are underestimating the effect of BT’s 21CN and how quickly BT can launch it.

When they do launch, they are trying to get back to a situation whereby everyone else once again becomes a BT reseller.

Virgin Media have around 4m customers, but they have little money for expansion and are likely to use LLU in future to provide broadband services. They’re stance is even worse now Sky have pulled their basic channels, which is likely to cause customers to migrate to Sky and if enough go, then Virgin Media may be in a sticky situation (the city won’t look kindly on a reduced customer base).

Wireless is the next big hope
Unfortunately there’s very little spectrum available for wireless broadband in the UK, though 2.5GHz is going to be made available for auction later this year, but it wont be cheap. It was reserved for 3G use, so there may be bids from 3G operators but it’s also bang in the middle of the frequencies WiMAX can use (BT have already said they’re interested in bidding for it).

Other companies who do have spectrum are: –

* PCCW (UK Broadband) who have a national 3.4GHz license.

* Pipex Wireless who have a national 3.6/4.2 GHz license.

It’s not clear whether the recent Pipex sale announcement covers the wireless side or not.

Future
Content will be key, access will just be a delivery channel for content and broadband will just be a commodity item (making it even more uneconomic to roll-out).

There’s going to be even more consolidation in the industry and BT will win either way (more LLU customers mean BT get more customers, if it fails, BT Wholesale get more customers).

BT will also dominate when they roll-out their 21CN, they want to be the Sky of fixed networks i.e. use them to deliver the content and they take a big chunk for the customer charge for doing so).

The future’s bright – but only for BT.

Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UK Pt 2

With all of these moves towards digital delivery in entertainment, we thought it would be worthwhile understanding one of the key items in this process – how to get the digital content to UK households.

Steve Kennedy is an acknowledged expert in the telecoms and data networks field, so it was an obvious choice for us to ask him to write an overview of how other IP operators can compete with BT – by creating their own data network. To do this, they need to put their own equipment into the telephone exchanges that connect to peoples houses. That process is Local Loop Unbundling (LLU).

Over three days we’ll give you a full background in LLU in the UK.

Yesterdays piece gave an overview of LLU and which companies are players in the UK.

LLU Penetration
All the large operators are going into around 1,000 DLEs (those being the most densely populated), since there are only around 1,200 of them, all the operators are targeting the same DLEs and there’s a lot of overlap.

Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UK Pt 2Since the operators all want to get into the same exchanges, there’s overcrowding and BT have to install new hostel space (the space where operators can put their own equipment into) which causes delays. It can take more than 6 months from when an operator puts an order in to being granted access to an exchange.

LLU (un)Economics
When LLU was announced it was prohibitively expensive, mainly due to Ofcom (or Oftel as it was then) allowing BT to set the pricing models.

Over time the economics have become fairer to operators, with BT being forced to set-up BT Openreach which looks after the physical infrastructure. If they hadn’t formed Openreach, it’s likely Ofcom would have pushed for a split of BT.

Ofcom then made BT not reduce wholesale pricing for their broadband services to give LLU operators a chance to gain a foothold. BT would have to maintain their pricing until April 2007 or 1.5m unbundled lines, whichever came first.

In Dec 2006 there were 1,000,000 unbundled lines and last week Ofcom announced that 1,700,000 unbundled lines had been reached (there was no distinction between Option 2 and 4). BT Wholesale has over 9m broadband customers.

Also Carphone Warehouse (CPW) released their interim results showing they had 2.31m broadband customers, 700,000 utilising LLU.

So out of the 1.7m unbundled lines, CPW have .7m which means there’s 1m split between the rest (mainly the big players, Wanadoo, C&W, Easynet Pipex and Tiscali).

As a rough model that’s 1.7m lines, spread over 1,000 DLEs which makes 1,700 lines unbundled per DLE. There’s 6 big players which means around 280 customers per operator per exchange.

Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UK Pt 2Unfortunately the economics of LLU only work if there’s a lot of customers per exchange i.e. massive scale.

Now that the milestone of 1.5m unbundled lines has been reached, BT Wholesale will be allowed to reduce their pricing (which they’ve said they want to do) which will make the economics even worse.

To get the scale, further consolidation will occur which means fewer LLU operators in the future (Pipex has already put itself up for sale with CPW rumoured to be the front-runner for buying them). They need to do this in order to get the customer penetration per exchange.

The next and final section will cover the possibility of competition to BT and what could happen in the future

Images are courtesy of wb-internet and the BBC, respectively.

Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UK

With all of these moves towards digital delivery in entertainment, we thought it would be worthwhile understanding one of the key items in this process – how to get the digital content to UK households.

Steve Kennedy is an acknowledged expert in the telecoms and data networks field, so it was an obvious choice for us to ask him to write an overview of how other IP operators can compete with BT – by creating their own data network. To do this, they need to put their own equipment into the telephone exchanges that connect to peoples houses. That process is Local Loop Unbundling (LLU).

Over the next three days we’ll give you a full background in LLU in the UK.

Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UKWhat is Local Loop Unbundling (LLU)?
LLU is the ability to put equipment into BT exchanges (know as DLEs – Digital Local Exchange) and take over the copper line into the premises.

There are two forms known as Option 2 (metallic path facility as BT call it) and Option 4 (shared metallic path facility).

Option 4 characteristics: –

  • Operator takes over the line and only offers broadband services (of course they can offer services on top of the basic connectivity).
  • BT retain control of voice services.
  • BT send out the “Blue Bill”, this includes line rental and voice traffic which means they can still market their services to the customer.

Option 2 characteristics: –

  • Operators takes over the line completely.
  • No BT blue bill.

Once the operator has put the equipment into the DLE, then they have to connect it back to their own network. BT can provide this using BES (Backhaul Extension Services) or the operator can use their own connectivity solution. Most operators don’t have the coverage to provide their own connectivity solutions.

DLEs
BT have around 5,600 DLEs across the UK (i.e. telephone exchanges) and these have customers connected to them. Around 1,200 are in densely populated areas, another 800 or so with medium populations and the rest in rural areas.

Backgrounder on Local Loop Unbundling in the UKAny operator wanting to offer broadband (and possibly voice) has to put their equipment in these DLEs. However there is a cost to unbundling an exchange (around 100,000 including backhaul) which means operators are only targeting the most densely populated ones.

LLU Operators
Operators who have unbundled exchanges are: –

Any operator with a “-” after has been acquired by another player.

* AOL (UK) Ltd – CPW
* Be Unlimited – O2
* Bulldog Communications Ltd – Users to Pipex, LLU C&W
* Cable and Wireless Ltd
* Computacenter PLC
* Easynet – Sky
* Eaton Power Solutions
* eXstream Networks Ltd
* Groestar Ltd
* Kingston Communications (Hull) Plc
* Lancaster University
* Leanwood Communications Limited
* Lumison
* Nestor Electronics Ltd
* Opal Telecom (CPW)
* Pipemedia Ltd
* Pipex Internet Ltd – who knows, up for sale
* Tiscali
* T-Mobile
* UKBB
* Unisys Ltd
* Updata Infrastructure UK Ltd
* Videonetworks Ltd – Tiscali
* Wanadoo
* WB-Internet Ltd
* Zen Internet Limited

Some of the smaller players are conducting trials and some are just offering private services (like Updata who offer connectivity solutions to councils etc).

Tomorrow, the penetration of LLU in the UK and the economics of it.

BT Try To Vary Payphone Pricing

In their constant pursuit for higher profits, BT have put a request into the UK uber-regulator Ofcom, to allow them to charge different prices for phone calls depending on where the phonebox is located, claim TelecomTV.

BT Try To Vary Payphone PricingBT is under a legal obligation to provide phone boxes up and down the length of the UK, which they claim numbers 63,795. BT say that 40,500 of these phone boxes are unprofitable.

BT is attempting to negotiate a three-year deal that would let BT “determine the acceptable pricing of pay-phone calls.”

Try to get out of their obligations is not really playing the game is it? It’s not like their obligation to payphones is news to them.

It’s got the ring about it along the lines of charging for directory enquiries. When BT was allowed to start charging for calls to directory enquiries, it was only ‘normal’ landlines that were effected. Calls to find out phone numbers were free from Payphone, as BT removed the printed telephone directories from them. A few years later BT had the rules changed and started charging from payphone, despite not returning the printed directories.

BT claim that calls from payphones have dropped off by 40% in the last four years, no doubt due to the considerable rise in uptake of mobile phones.

Digital-Lifestyles thinks this doesn’t make it right that people who live in remote locations should have to pay inflated prices for using the same payphone and connecting to the same phone network as everyone else, just because BT wants to make more profit.

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BT Stays Top Of The UK Broadband League

BT Stays Top Of The UK Broadband LeagueNew figures from research firm Epitiro puts BT as the leading consumer broadband provider for the 4th quarter of 2006 (October-January).

Their research found BT to be providing the best overall service, closely followed by Pipex, Orange and Demon, with Virgin in 5th place. Despite their low placing, Virgin recorded the lowest number of connection failures, suggesting that their customers achieved the highest degree of uptime.

BT notched up the fastest HTTP download speed and fastest FTP downloads from users’ personal webspace, with Pipex recording the fastest FTP upload speed.

BT Stays Top Of The UK Broadband LeagueEpitiro’s testing procedure monitors “customer experience” for internet access services, analysing over 622,000 real-time data samples from eleven locations around the UK – meaning that each broadband service was tested around 60,000 times.

Like ferrets in a drainpipe factory, Epitiro’s boffins keenly rummaged through these figures to get a breakdown of the speed and reliability of Internet connections, connection times, download and upload speeds, and the performance of both ping and DNS lookups.

The report also shows browsing speeds increasing steadily throughout last year, with the fourth quarter recording an average consumer ADSL connection speed at 5728.3 kilobytes per second.

“ISPs are increasing their speeds, which is good news for bandwidth-hungry users,” commented Epitiro’s Gavin Johns.

BT Stays Top Of The UK Broadband League“Speeds have increased from 3817.82 kilobytes per second in the third quarter due to new ADSL Max entrants into the ten largest broadband providers. However it’s unlikely that many ADSL Max services will perform at their full capacity of 8Mbps. The speed of broadband service reduces the further the customer’s connection is from their local telephone exchange,” he added.

Overall rankings Q4 2006 (Q3 2006 in brackets)
1 BT (BT)
2 Pipex (Pipex)
3 Demon (Orange)
4 PlusNet (Demon)
5 Virgin (Virgin)

Epitiro